Road to Reunion
by Mongoosie
Summary: AU: It's 1990 and Edna Hyde is coming home to Point Place to see her son for the first time since she abandoned him. This is an analysis of Edna's live up to her reunion with Hyde. Future J/H, mention of others.
1. Prologue 1990

A/N: Hello all. First That 70s Show fan-fiction, reviews would be more than helpful, but if there isn't any that's alright, enjoy!

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1990

Point Place

Edna Louise Hyde stared down at the grave of her brother. It had been over thirty years since she visited him. Around her all the flowers were wilted and the summer sun gave the place a falsely cheerful feel. He wasn't even twenty when he died in 1955 and he didn't even have a chance for kids. It's been a hard life for Edna, a life that wouldn't do for tears and sentimentality. But for her brother she would cry until the flood came again. She held those tears in check and looked off into the little road that led into the cemetery. Leaning against a late-model Ford was a woman who as far as Edna was concerned had no right to be there. Her hair was as red as hers, though without much gray and cut into an elegant bob. Her body was as thin as Edna's used to be and it was draped in perfectly proper summer attire for a classy woman approaching forty. Those eyes, the eyes she had hated since she was ten, were thankfully hidden by sunglasses. Sunglasses were always a saving grace.

With one final glance at her brother's resting place, she trudged back to the woman leaning on the car. The woman's lips were pursed and she seemed to ooze bitterness and disgust with every breath. "You done?" she asked.

"Yes, Mary, I'm done,"

"Do you remember where the Formans are located?"

"I may be getting old, but I'm not senile yet,"

"Good, let's go then before the sun sets,"

Edna sighed as the woman opened the car door for her. "We've been driving for five hours," she said. "Can't we at least be civil for what will surely be less than ten minutes of driving?"

The woman took off her shades and gave her a cold look that rattled the ghosts in her. "I'm here to see my brother," she said. "Whatever you say doesn't matter."


	2. 1948 to 1955

A/N: Thank you for your reviews! I own nothing but what I own...or something.

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1948-1955

In Point Place it seemed like everything mattered, once.

Edna grew up in Point Place. Her father, Private Henry Edward McCullough, died bleeding his guts out on French soil. He was a hero, yet he left his frail wife Francine alone with two kids and no way to make real income. The war was over and women were expected to go back into the home, not be the providers. So Francine worked at a diner making less than nothing 

while her children survived off of diner leftovers and charity. Still, it was a good time for Edna and her brother. They had friends in the trailer park they lived in and used their imagination to get them out of their hell. They weren't exactly sweet kids; her brother was a pyromaniac and Edna was a loud-mouth tomboy who knew how to curse like a sailor and spit like one too. They'd worry their mother to death with their behavior. Still, they always seemed to mean well; Edna even remembered times when she and her brother would steal Mrs. Hansen's pies cooling from her trailer and sell slices to the men on their lunch breaks from the factory just so they could afford groceries.

It was a man from the factory that would change their lives forever. His name was Hank Berman. He was forty-one to their mother's twenty-eight in 1948 and he lost some of his hearing in the war. He was a man who you knew would give way to fatness and he always smelled of cigarettes, pomade and lard from some greasy meal or another. He worked in the office so that meant he had a good job and he wasn't married so to the scores of war widows he was a dish. He met and started dating their mother after he came by to thank them for the stolen pie. While he was courting Edna's mother he would give the kids nickels and tell them about his wartime experiences. They got married not even two months later and Hank moved them all to a small house across town. Edna was ten and her brother just turned eleven. Edna was just happy to not live in a trailer and that her mother was happy. Her brother, however, was sullen and given to frequent outbreaks of anger after their mother married. "What's wrong?" she would ask him.

He would always look like he was trying to say something, but every time he would just shake his head and give her a one-armed hug. "Nothing," he would whisper. "Don't worry about it."

The marriage wasn't a happy one from the start. Hank would come home at any hour of the night drunk and bitter. He'd rage to his unwilling audience about how he was being looked over for a promotion due to his damaged hearing and he'd snap at anyone who got in his way. Her mother wore a plastic smile that became her real one and always looked the other way as he would go off on her son and daughter. That resulted in bruises that weren't easy to hide away and went untreated by a woman who ignored their occurrence. By the time Edna turned eleven she knew more about makeup than an Avon lady and wore it often to hide the bruises to her face. Her brother took it all stoically but started to take it out on the neighborhood kids. By thirteen he was doing three to six month stints in juvenile hall to where he might as well stayed there. That left Edna alone with a simpering mother and a stepfather who started to stare at her more and more often and never in a way that she liked.

At the age of eleven Edna was the tallest girl in her class with red hair that would catch the sun and the bluest eyes and had a face that garnered compliments whenever she went out with her mother anywhere. Boys two, even three, years older would walk her home. That summer she received her first kiss from a boy in the seventh grade and was the toast of her school. For that short amount of time she felt rather happy about herself. It wasn't long before Hank noticed the beauty that was blossoming in his house. She would catch him staring at her and on more than one occasion he would enter her room without knocking, or "forget" that she was taking a bath. On her twelfth birthday, after the cake and ice cream were had and the presents unwrapped, he raped her.

It didn't take long, in the grand scheme of things. She hadn't been asleep for long and she had no clue who she was dreaming of or what. He came into her room, locked the door, ripped off the covers and tore at her clothes. Despite her screams and failing arms he got what he wanted. Years later she couldn't remember the pain but she could remember the whispered threats to her and her mother, the feel of his heavy body on hers, and the stench of alcohol and pomade. She laid there shaking after he was done. She wanted to throw up and did so as soon as she was certain Hank went back to bed. She then took a shower and scrubbed her skin raw. She threw away her nightgown and looked at herself in the mirror. In the light of the bathroom her skin was pale, her eyes were red, and her hair was a mess. Hank used to corner her in the kitchen and play with her hair, calling it silken fire. She stopped looking into mirrors after that.

By the time her brother came off of a six month stint in juvenile hall Edna was a changed little girl. She got to where she couldn't sleep any more than a few hours a night in fear of Hank coming to her again. During meals she would stare at her mother, screaming with her eyes to notice that there was something wrong, but she never did. Her brother kept looking her in a strange way and Hank could sit at the dinner table looking like an angel while he was fingering his twelve-year-old step-daughter under the table. She started to wear baggy clothes and shied away from the boys who used to turn her head. She began smoking and sneaking liquor from the liquor cabinet and made a point to stay out all night to avoid being at her. Her mother would cry about her behavior but soon Edna didn't care.

Her brother was pulling a year stint back in juvenile hall for breaking and entering when she was thirteen. She became good at staying out all hours of the night and was able to avoid being around her stepfather. When she couldn't avoid him she got good at lying there, letting him finish his business and get off without a sound or movement. She fainted while out shopping with her mother one month before her fourteenth birthday. She never had her period and her mother was suspicious about it. The doctor confirmed that she was at least two months pregnant and not even in high school yet. Her mother cried some more and kept asking herself where things went wrong. Hank would sneer at her for opening her legs like a whore and how he bet she didn't even know who the father was. Even with all that said there was a fear in his eyes that gave Edna some sort of satisfaction.

They shipped her off five towns away to a convent where "girls in trouble" went to have their babies and not bring shame to their family. In a surreal way it was one of the best and worst times of her life. Her mother abandoned her, she didn't even ask her who got her that way; she just accepted Hank's view of things. The nuns would look at her with pity laced with a self-righteous disgust that made her skin prickle. The baby was growing and taking over her body and she began to resent it and its intrusion into her body. However, for Edna it was at least peaceful; she didn't have to watch out for Hank at night and she didn't have to be around a mother oblivious to what was going on. As the seasons changed and her belly grew she made a few friends there, some who even shared her story. Sometimes she could even forget that she was pregnant and just was just happy to be away.

The baby came early on June 19th, 1952. There wasn't enough time to give her anything and she had to go through four hours of intense labor before she had the baby. Edna looked at the child that took over her body, taking in the little face that was a blend of her and the man she hated. For so long she had resented, even hated that baby. Staring into her daughter's face in its first day of freedom all she could feel was apathy. "Do you want to hold her for a while?" one of the nurses asked.

"No,"

"Are you sure?"

"I said no; get her away from me,"

Edna had to wait three months before she could go home. In the meantime her baby was adopted and sent God only knew where. Her mother was the only one there to pick her up and they didn't talk to each other for the entire ride down. Edna grew to loathe her mother in that drive. Home was different now. Hank would look at her with fear and the visits to her bedroom became more infrequent as he drank and strayed from home. Her mother wouldn't even look at her, much less talk to her. Rumors circulated around town about how Edna McCullough was a little slut who got in trouble. It was hard to fight that reputation and soon she gave into it. By the time her brother returned from juvenile hall she was fifteen and had at least three boyfriends and the only person upset about it was her brother.

Everything came to a head when Edna came home late for dinner smelling of booze, cigarettes, and sex. Her mother hardly looked at her and Hank just shrugged it off. After ten minutes her brother stood up and looked at their mother with contempt. "What's wrong with you?" he asked her.

"Watch your mouth," Hank said.

"No, to hell with you, Hank. Mama, your daughter's drunk,"

"Leave it alone," Edna begged.

"I have left it alone long enough. Mama, do you know what your husband did to me and your daughter? Do you really think it was some random boy who got her in trouble?"

Fiercely Hank threw his half-full beer bottle at the young man, causing him to stagger. Their mother choked out a scream and Edna flinched. "You shut your goddamn mouth," he hissed.

"Leave him alone," Edna cried.

"Hank…" their mother said.

Hank wasn't listening. While her brother was shaking off the hit from the bottle Hank lunged over and started beating his head against the Formica table. Edna couldn't stop screaming and her mother just sat there, staring at her husband beating up her only son with shining eyes. That night they were having fried chicken, and like a good cook Edna's mother used a cast iron pan to heat the oil. She usually had Hank to lift the pan, laughing about how 

skinny she was and using it as a good opportunity to flirt with her husband. It seemed like Hank was wailing on Edna's brother for a while when he stopped abruptly. Edna stopped screaming and looked at Hank in fascination. All expression seemed to leave him as a thick rivet of blood escaped to his chin. With a groan he collapsed, a dent of hair, skull, and other in the back of his head. Behind him stood Edna's mother, shaking like a leaf, holding that heavy frying pan like a prize baseball player. Edna couldn't take her eyes off her mother as she stood over her husband's dead body, her weapon dripping blood and chicken grease. Her brother sat up with a groan, his face coloring in deep bruises. "Go," their mother had whispered.

Never had Edna been scared of her mother, but the look in her eyes and the makeshift weapon in her hand made her reconsider her view of that tiny woman. "Mama," Edna breathed.

"Go!"

Edna stood up and helped her brother to his feet. They ran out of the house, her brother staggering as they went. They hid out at a friend of her brother's and slept in their basement. Later they heard that the neighbors called the police about the screaming. Their mother had been found sitting at the table, Hank's face buried in the fried chicken and mashed potatoes. They shipped her off to a mental institution and so they had to add crazy on top of their bad reputations. Their house was in Hank's name and neither of them were left in his will so all they were left with was nothing. Edna's brother started working at a garage in another county and Edna pulled a job as a waitress. Neither of them wanted to be shipped off to a home. Instead, they pooled together their money and got a run-down house in Point Place and ignored the rumors that swirled around them.

It wasn't an easy life, but they had each other and Edna could at least sleep for more than eight hours at night. The first year was rough; they had no money and her brother's hellion reputation made getting things from their neighbors difficult. Still, they survived and that was better than either of them had ever expected. However, Edna's brother was a proud young man, ashamed that he had not and could not protect and provide for his wayward sister. Two years later her brother joined the Army, telling Edna that it was the best way to provide for the both of them. A year later he was killed in a training exercise leaving Edna alone at eighteen with a house she could hardly afford without a family. At that time she had graduated from high school and her brother had told her to save the money she was given to continue her schooling. But that was over.

Nothing mattered any more.


	3. 1990

A/N: Thank you for the reviews. Things are coming along. Should be a fairly short story. More reviews will be welcome!

I wished I owned something...

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1990

"Who were we visiting anyway?"

Edna and Mary had to stop for gas before they went on. Edna wanted to stand outside rather than wait in the car. They were in the middle of town, not far at all from the Formans. The town looked a little busier than it was when she kissed it goodbye in '76. There were a few more chains and grocery stores. In the distance she could see the diner where she worked as a waitress until her brother died. It was a hard job serving coffee to leering old men who liked to smack her ass. Still, the tips were good and it paid the bills. Retrospect being the bitch that it was, however, 

it was probably the best job she had ever held considering how her days were now filled with slinging crap to the elderly. She shook her head to clear herself from her musings. "I'm sorry?" she asked.

"Who were we visiting," Mary repeated.

"Private Stephen Henry McCullough," Edna smiled. "He was my brother. When our mother killed your…Hank…he was all I had."

Mary nodded. "Is that where your son got his name?"

Edna sighed. "Yes and no," she said. "He got his name from his father."


	4. 1957 to 1963

A/N: Reviews would keep on being helpful! I will make sure things keep moving forward!

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1957 – 1963

Edna was just shy of twenty when she met Steven Jason Hyde, Jr., otherwise known as Bud. She was still waiting tables at the diner and living in the house she bought with her brother. She didn't have much; all of her money was going towards keeping her house. What extra money she got came from her boyfriends, of which she entertained many. She was stringing alone one boyfriend when her future husband came into the diner with a bunch of other leather-clad losers. He was tall, had wavy brown hair, and two grey eyes that made her insides melt. All it took was him buying a milkshake and a burger and she was hooked.

If she had access to a shrink he or she would have told her it was a mistake for in a sick way she was falling in love with her brother. He was tall, lean, and dangerous with a roguish smile that was so much like her Stephen's. He was three years older than her and was more than willing to share his booze and his weed to the pretty woman. Their courtship, if you thought getting high and screwing in his car qualified as such, was relatively short. They got married in December. It was only a judge and an old secretary, Steven's parents not wanting to come and Edna's mother still in the loony bin. To a twenty-year-old Edna it was romantic; to a fifty-something Edna it was the stupidest thing she had ever done.

The marriage wasn't a very good one from the start. Bud was always between jobs which became more of a concern as his spending never matched up with his earnings. Edna and he were trying hard to have a baby but Bud wasn't a lucky shooter and accused Edna of being frigid. He started walking in and out of her life when she took a job at the cafeteria. After a year she became used him making up an excuse to see friends and family and be gone for days, even months at a time. At first she would ride him about it, resulting in useless screaming matches, which ended up with her forgiving him and them screwing on other pieces of furniture. When she got used to it she started to sneak out too. One of her friends was a girl who somehow got lucky enough to go to school in Milwaukee and would be good enough to invite her to some of her college parties. It was at one of those parties around March of 1958 that she met William Barnett.

William Barnett was all of the things Bud Hyde wasn't. He was a little shorter, black, intelligent, and had the most searching brown eyes she had ever seen. They only messed around for a week, William escaping his pregnant wife to be around some friends and Bud was gone for a month around that time. All of her friends knew what she was doing and when she and William ended their tryst they expressed their relief for her; not only was he married but it was still the 1950s and running off with a man of color just wasn't done. The relief was short lived when just two weeks shy of Bud's simpering return home she found out she was two months pregnant. She was petrified; she knew good and well who the father was and had no doubts that this would bite her in the ass. Abortion wasn't an option; she had a friend who died from getting one from a doctor who advertized in their circles. Her friends would have her try all kinds of shit but to no avail, even in the womb her baby was a survivor. And giving up another baby wouldn't look good as she was married and had a job. All she could do after that was wrap her legs around Bud when he did return and omit like hell when he found out she was pregnant.

For seven agonizing months Edna felt like she was in hell. When she first got knocked up she knew that she was giving up that baby. Now she was stuck. Bud was thrilled that she was pregnant and actually stuck around, taking a job at a bar to provide funds for their child. She had to suffer through his cheery optimism about the whole thing. What friends she had were taking bets on when Bud would leave her when the baby came out black and even as a married woman no one in town looked at her with any form of respect. And if that all wasn't enough her pregnancy was murder. The child kicked all the time when it could, she was always nauseous, she blew up like a whale, and her hormones were driving her crazy. It almost came as a relief when her labor started.

It took thirty hours for her son to come into the world and she didn't have the luxury of drugs. He was a large-headed infant who screamed his way out. Bud was passed out in the waiting room so for a few minutes she was alone with her son. He was pink and wrinkly, but she heard from a friend that she couldn't count on that. She went through names in her head, but she only thought of one: Stephen. Her husband came into the room, smelling of beer and cigarettes. Hesitantly, she told him he had a boy and she wanted to name him Stephen. Before she could clue him in on why Bud beamed like a little boy on Christmas and she gave in. Though the name on the birth certificate said Steven Jason Hyde III, in Edna's mind he was Stephen, named after the brother she lost years ago. She put William Barnett as the father when Bud wasn't looking though, just in case.

Steven, to her relief, stayed pink for several months before he lost the baby coloring and went to a slightly darker shade than either her or Bud. His hair was loosely curled, but then she could explain that away because her father had curly hair. If anything, though his eye shape was like his father his eyes were just blue like her and her brother's. He was a cute baby, but he cried like anything and it didn't help when Bud got fired and started drinking more. Edna wasn't one to take it, like her mother. She started yelling back, her son being baptized by the language of the frustrated at an early age. Bud started leaving again and when Steven was four he was more or less gone for good. Occasionally, Bud came back with excuses and money but that never lasted. By 1963, she was a twenty-five year old single mother. She started cursing the day she met Steven Hyde, Jr. Soon, she started cursing the day she had Steven Hyde, III.


	5. Return to 1990

A/N: Things are slowly coming along. Thank you for the reviews and more will be helpful!

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1990

Edna looked at the Forman house with trepidation and hatred. She remembered going by there once, when Steven was nine or ten and she was clear enough to care where he was. He was friends with a kid named Eric, a scrawny little boy that played with toys. They were running around with this brown haired kid and a girl with red hair by the garage. A short woman with puffy hair and a giddy smile came out with milk and cookies, which the kids ran to like in a commercial for some domestic thing or another. The woman looked up with a small frown, taking in Edna's ironed red hair, braless top, and tight pants. Edna knew her reputation better than anyone then, but to be examined by that poodle of a woman made her teeth grate. What's more, she caught her boy beaming at this poodle as though she was the best thing since apple pie. Shaking herself out of the past, she looked to Mary. "Well, we're here," she said to her slightly loathed travel companion. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

Mary looked at Edna with a raised eyebrow, making the older woman hate her even more. She walked up to the door and knocked on it with a firm fist. They waited, listening to the sound of children playing. Finally the door opened. In front of the two women were two little boys around six or seven years old. One of them was fairly skinny and pasty with red hair and green eyes and was sporting a dirty face. The other one was slightly stockier and darker with wildly curly black hair and sharp blue eyes that reminded Edna of someone. From the dirt on his hands and the flush of victory on his face she could deduce who was doing what. "Is this the home of Katherine and Reginald Foreman?" Mary asked.

The kids frowned and looked at each other. Finally, the little boy with red hair ran off, screaming for his grandma, leaving the little blue-eyed boy to stare at them. Edna was never good with kids and Mary merely gave the kid a tight little nod as his friend came back dragging an older woman with puffy graying hair. Edna instantly recognized Katherine Forman, known by many as Kitty. The woman had her hand on the little boy's shoulder and ruffled the dark-haired boy's hair as she came to the door. "Can I help you?" she asked, in a bubbly voice.

"My name is Mary Donahue," Mary said. "And you may remember Edna Hyde. We're here to talk to Steven Hyde."

Kitty froze and the darker boy removed his eyes from them and turned to Kitty. "Grandma…" he began.

"Luke, Zeph, there are cookies in the kitchen. Why don't you go get some," the other woman said laughing a distinctively odd laugh.

The two boys ran from the door. Kitty fidgeted slightly. "Edna," she said. "It's been too long."

"It has been," Edna murmured.

Kitty looked behind her and stepped back. "Come on in," she said.

They entered and found the place slightly out-dated, with nice furniture and carpeting. It looked more like a home than any of Edna's previous residences. In a recliner off from the couch was a bald man reading a newspaper. "Red," she said with false cheer. "Look who's here."

The man looked up from his paper and frowned. His glare reminded Edna of a watchful pit bull that used to guard the trailer park she lived in. "You're fourteen years too late," he said.

Edna bristled. Beside her, Mary gave her an accusatory look. Kitty mumbled something about refreshments and walked quickly to the kitchen. Red continued to glare at her, his hazel eyes taking her in with disgust. Edna took in the living room to avoid his eyes. There were pictures by the television, many of them featuring a scrawny man and a trampy blonde. On top of the TV must have been recent pictures, showing the both of them with other people and kids. One of them was of Steven. He was wearing a sweater and had his arms around a shorter brunette with olive skin and a dazzling smile. There were also three kids with them with dark curly hair and piercing eyes. There were a few other pictures of Steven, but the happiness of that one drew her eye. A slight movement from the kitchen brought her eyes to the door. From the door of the kitchen she noticed the two boys, Luke and Zeph, peeking through the door. She stared back at Zeph, knowing now where those watchful blue eyes came from. He called this poodle Grandma and she bakes him cookies. She turned to Red and found him still staring at her, waiting to speak. "I know that," was all she could say.


	6. 1964 to 1977

1964 – 1977

Edna was heading towards the horrific age of thirty and preparing for the lunch shift when Kennedy was shot. After that it all went to shit.

The world was an insane place to be single and in a small town. Ideas came in slowly from the cities, but when they came they caught on hard. Boys were wearing their hair longer, girls weren't wearing their bras. The little boys she served chili and meatloaf to on a daily basis were being shipped off to die in a foreign country as soon as their hats went into the air. Edna was a young mother with a good figure, wore the clothes that did not hide it, and no husband to tell her what to do. Automatically she was painted with a bad brush. She dyed her ginger hair a bright red and kept it iron straight. Her head was filled with the English imports and American groove masters. Men and boys would stare as her hips swayed in her mini-skirt and go-go boots; one man even called her Ann-Margaret whenever she walked by the general store. From an early age she had her son nursing on music and irreverent culture that permeated the small world around them. And, for a time, her son was her friend.

Once upon a time Edna was shining optimism when it came to her son. She vowed to be there for him in the ways that her mother wasn't for her and she could say that up until Bud left she kept her promise. She worked at the school and at a local factory to make sure there was enough food on the table, she had holes in her clothes and made sure Steven had good ones and she even forgone liquor and pot for months just so they could have a car. It wasn't until she caught more attention from other men did she started to drift away from him. She knew that she never wanted to marry again, but the male attention really had her going. By day she was a lunch lady, getting shitted on by snotty assholes whose mothers sneered at her, but by night she was the hottest little thing in Point Place. They were turned on by her body, her loose mouth, and whatever adjectives they used while on top of her. They didn't need her and that gave her the kind of freedom a little kid could never give her. She reneged on her devotion to her son and started drinking and smoking and trying everything that was free and plentiful. And gradually those men who loved her so temporarily and the toxins that were always fleeting started to replace her son in importance.

When Steven was eight, her mother got released from the loony bin. She was a frail and old looking lady her red hair almost completely white and her entire frame prone to shivers from the shock treatments and isolation. As pitiful as she was, Edna was amazed by how much she still hated that woman even as she allowed her into her home. She still remembered the ineffective crying, the looks of horror, and the unspoken remarks about how she deserved to be raped and abused. Even as the woman begged for her forgiveness she found herself deaf and numb with each sad plea. She took in the woman who stood by during her rape into her home and promptly couldn't stand to be in the same house with her. She increased her after-school activities at a fevered pitched, even going so far as to leave for weeks at a time to go off with one new thing after another. Any time she did feel guilt all she'd have to do was go home and see her simpering face and blue idiot eyes; that cured her quick. It didn't help matters that this woman took her daughter's treatment and martyred herself to it, or that Steven adored her and vocalized that often, or that so many in town felt sorry for that old bag even though they would spit on Edna just as soon as look at her. It got worse when her mother got sick and had the whole church community gathered around her dying body with all the sympathy Edna didn't receive when she was young and pregnant or when her brother died. By the time cancer finished eating away at Francine Berman from her stomach Steven was fifteen and Edna was only ever home to sleep it off or when hotels were too expensive.

It was 1975. Watergate was all anyone could talk about, they more or less lost the war in Vietnam, and the town was filling up with soldiers who were directionless and in need of any help they could get. Edna did her patriotic duty by hosting an ever-revolving door of former Army grunts, truckers, drifters, hippies, and tight wads. She lost herself to the music, to the drugs, to the feel of something more than what she was getting. More and more she wanted to leave Point Place and began to resent the people and things that kept her there. She got into screaming matches with Steven over every little thing under the sun, not understanding how such a cute baby could turn into a loud-mouth piece of shit like Bud, or Hank, or any other man that wronged her. It got worse as he began to listen to her music, drink her beer, and sneer at her with the same judgmental eyes of the town while he placed his headphones on and ignored her. She relished the days he'd be gone with his friends, leaving her to imagine a life far away from Point Place without being anchored to a crappy job or anyone who felt the right to judge. It wasn't until she became really fed up and some guy, one in a series of lonely men, came along begging her to come with him that she actually decided to do something. And, in the latter part of 1977 just two days shy of her forty-first birthday, she left Point Place. She left only a note, her shitty house, and a sneering man-child who had no business tying her down.


End file.
